…Ace educationist slips to the land of the saints
She will not hear the bittern cry in the wild sky, not anymore. Where she lies in sweet repose, Iyabo Margaret Durand will never hear the voices of the sweeter birds nor can she hear the pattering of the rain. The prominent society matriarch and foremost educationist is dead. She died days ago, at a private hospital in Lagos, after a protracted battle with a yet-to-be-disclosed illness. She was aged 72.
Durand was the co-founder of highbrow, Greenwood House School, Parkview Estate, Ikoyi, which is regarded as one of the most elitist schools in Nigeria. She was an accomplished educationist and the proprietress of Greenwood House School Lagos. A native of Lagos, she was from the prominent Thomas family of Lagos Island. She was the only full sibling of Sisi Modupe Sagoe, the doyenne of textile business in Nigeria and one of the most formidable society grand matriarchs of the Nigerian society. It is pertinent to note that Durand’s step-mother was the grand-daughter of the late Candido Da Rocha, one of the business moguls who dominated the Nigeria’s business sector during the earliest part of last century.
Durand taught at Corona School Ikoyi for 25years after which she left to set up the Green Wood House School in 1995, with her niece, Ekua Titilayo Abudu,(nee Sagoe), a successful lawyer and chartered administrator. Durand is survived by two children, Omolara Onalaja and Dayo Durand, and many grandchildren
